Winemaker Dies After Falling Into Wine Vat

A woman in Spain fell into a massive vat of wine and drowned when she lost her balance from the pungent fumes given off during the fermenting process.

Winemaker Nerea Perez, 25, was stirring the batch when she caught a whiff of the overwhelming odor and lost her balance — resulting in a tipsy tumble into the giant barrel, Central European News reports.

Workers were concerned when she suddenly disappeared and started searching the village of Salas de los Barrios in northern Spain.

Perez’s wine-making uncle Raul Perez eventually found her floating face down in the container.
Intoxication from the fermentation process is a notorious cause of accidents among vintners because it’s almost impossible to avoid breathing in the extremely powerful gases. The vapors are released when the “lees” or sediment — dead yeast and bits of grapes — are mixed together, according to CEN.

“Now is the time for harvesting grapes so a lot of villages around here have people working on stirring the wine in the barrels,” said Perez’s colleague Ginebra Peralta Colunga. “This is the first time this has happened, though.”

Via: http://nypost.com/2014/10/01/winemaker-dies-after-falling-into-a-vat-of-vino/